A five-minute film and a podcast episode from the same reporting trip to El Hierro, in October 2025. Both start from one question: is El Hierro a replicable laboratory, or an experiment sustained by conditions no one else has?
Film: El Hierro, the pulse of the Garoé
Voices: Cristina Morales (Gorona del Viento) · Joanna Rudnik (official tour guide) · Davinia Armas (Cabildo de El Hierro) · Gisella Horn (Buceo El Bajón) · Marcos Tavío (8 Aborigen) · Herminio Sánchez (Sabinosa un Sentimiento).
Transcript
Translated from Spanish. Joanna Rudnik speaks in English.
0:01 · Covadonga Riesco: The basalt is black. The Atlantic pounds El Hierro with an old monotony. Up in the fog, time loosens. This island learned early on a rather unromantic idea: survival by managing limits. That is why I am here: not to look for a postcard, but to test a question. Is El Hierro a replicable laboratory, or an experiment sustained by unique conditions?
0:24 · Cristina Morales: Beyond being a technological example, because the plant has already proved it when we have the resources, we are the only island that is not connected to another grid and has managed to run on 100% renewable energy, even for 25 consecutive days. The most important message El Hierro has to send is that quantity does not matter, size does not matter, because in the end we are a small island and we did it. So the efforts should not stop: the energy transition is necessary, and there can be no excuses.
1:02 · Joanna Rudnik: Visitors arrive in El Hierro either by plane or at the harbour. These places are really close together, and usually one of the first things you see is five very big windmills, which really strikes you. And then the question is: what are they for? […] We feel very, very lucky, because we are producing up to 80% of the energy, not really with the sun but with the wind and the water. Many people use the sun, we have solar panels on our houses, but our three desalination plants are powered by the water and the wind.
1:58 · Davinia Armas: What makes us one of the most sustainable destinations is that our visitors spend, on average, more than eight hours a day outside their accommodation. They come to feel the destination. We also have sports that are more niche but have put us on the map worldwide, such as diving: one of the best seabeds to dive in, not only for our species and underwater flora, but for the clarity and the warmth of our waters.
2:39 · Covadonga Riesco: Further south, in La Restinga, sustainability stops being a discourse and becomes a behaviour.
2:48 · Gisella Horn: Being able to drive up and park in front of the door is something you don’t see anywhere else. Or leaving your car keys inside the car. Here, for example, we leave the equipment outside, and it all stays there. People who come from the mainland ask, “But can I really leave this here?” There is no problem; nothing has ever gone missing. Everything is perfectly looked after. I think that helps too: if you see that everything is tidy and well kept, and nobody takes anything from anybody, the people who come respect it.
3:26 · Covadonga Riesco: My provisional conclusion is simple. El Hierro works as a laboratory when it manages limits. It becomes an experiment when success pushes it to ignore them.
3:40 · Marcos Tavío: We don’t need anyone to help us; we need to be allowed to be sustainable. And that is key. It is no use to me that you help me put up solar panels. Fine, if you help me, good. What I need is for you to let me depend on myself and on my island, the way it used to be.
4:07 · Herminio Sánchez: What is all this for? To try to get our young people to come back. And to make sure they can choose whether they want to go to Madrid to work, or to Tenerife, or to Frontera, or to work in Sabinosa.
4:25 · Covadonga Riesco: This is the real tension: not between green and grey, but between the story and the capacity to sustain it. At Orchilla, the horizon looks final. El Hierro is not a utopia; it is a finite territory with a real ceiling, and that is its lesson. Sustainability is not certified; it is managed day by day. The final question remains open: what does it mean to live well when the place truly has a limit?
Podcast: Voices of the Meridian
Episode: “El Hierro: An Island Powered by the Wind, the Sea, and Its Own Rhythm”, with Joanna Rudnik, Marcos Tavío and Gisella Horn. Listen on Substack.
On the westernmost tip of the Canary Islands, El Hierro is proving that another way of travelling, eating, and living is possible. In this episode we meet a local tourism guide, a chef, and a dive centre manager to explore how the island became one of the first in the world to run on green energy, why “zero-kilometre” isn’t a marketing word here but a daily practice, and what makes its marine reserve one of Europe’s best-kept diving secrets.
Read the full report: El Hierro: A regeneration lab, or a utopian experiment? · See the photo essay: El Hierro: An Island That Slowed Down
